Inside and Out
by Thanfiction
Summary: There are worse things than the hot guy being gay, taken, or even both.


I almost hadn't gone.

I'd been seconds away from buying a breakfast burrito and a Monster - don't even start with me - at the 7-11 when Curtis had come howling in to stop me. I'd actually wondered for an instant if he'd been summoned like an organically-powered and very glittery Bat Signal by the imminent presence of nitrates and artificial flavors on my breath, but he'd actually just seen my car at the pump and wanted to borrow my boobs.

See, he's got this theory, has since the sixth grade, which was about the time that they arrived along with the realization that both of us liked boys. Both Curtis and I, that is, not me and my boobs. Though they…nevermind, I digress. A lot. As usual. Anyway, Curtis has this theory that if he can get more than fifteen seconds of eye contact from a guy when my chest is in the frame, he's got a shot. It's a ridiculous theory, sure, and it's failed more often than not, but I put up with it the way he puts up with my conviction that diet Dr. Pepper cancels out Moon Pie if eaten while standing. That's what friends do…most of the time.

This time, though, I almost said no. Six weeks on the road and less than an hour after getting off a red-eye and reclaiming my car at the airport, I just wanted to get home and begin a torrid affair with Netflix, but Curtis was making THAT face, and moreover, he was offering to buy me breakfast AND a drink. He pulled the pumpkin bread, that fucker. Warmed up with the really nice Kerrygold butter.

By the time I followed him there and we had to circle the miniscule (six parking spaces, REALLY?) lot and eventually park by the Subway across the median and walk, I was in the muttering place. Even warm pumpkin bread was losing its appeal compared to taking a shower with my own Spongebob towel after and sprawling all over my own couch with my own buttdents. Naked. Naked except for some of the fuck it I'm pampering myself Crabtree and Evelyn mango body butter and —

_That barista._

Curtis must have been ready for me to stop short, because he didn't run into me, despite having been mere inches behind. Instead I heard the low rumble of his chuckle and felt him squeeze my wrist conspiratorially. "He just started here three weeks ago. Flirts with basically everybody, but there's no ring, and nobody's seen him out with ANYONE, ANYWHERE. We can't even figure out where he's living or grocery shopping. It's like he just appears to fulfill coffee fantasies and poof!"

Coffee fantasies indeed. He stood out from the usual selection of college students and empty-nest moms who usually worked the store like a German shepherd in a hamster cage. Thirtyish the hard way, easily over six feet tall, his build and hands belonged to blue collar labor, but his face was pure daytime TV, with short, sun-lightened blonde hair and eyes almost as green as his apron (according to which, by the way, his name was Dean). He was leaning against the bar, talking around the corner to someone at one of the back tables, but at the sound of the door, he looked up and smiled straight through my jet lag. "Hey, what can I getcha?"

Somehow, I managed to not make a fool of myself ordering a grande caramel chai, extra cinnamon, no water. He was the only one at the counter - not unusual that early in the morning, it's a small store, and other than that one other customer we were the only ones there - and I took a seat at the bar to watch him make the drink, remembering for Curtis' benefit to lean forward, crossing my arms strategically. "So, at the risk of being a complete cliche, what's a guy like you doing in a place like this?"

He almost succeeded in feigning a passable hurt look, but there was too much of a smile crinkling the edges of his eyes. "Would you believe me if I said steaming your milk?"

"If you insist." I matched him with a smile of my own. Oh, he was definitely flirting and definitely looking but there was something different, too. Most guys that hot, they acted like your panties were as good as on their bedroom floor already, but there was, oddly, no entitlement to the appreciation, and now that I looked again, there was almost a weariness behind the smile. _You're hot_, it seemed to say, _and so am I, but life's more complicated than that, isn't it?_

I looked at his hands again, half-expecting to see the recent tan line of a ring, but there was nothing except the scars and calluses I'd already noted, and he paused mid-cinnamon-sprinkle, frowning as he caught my scrutiny. I brought the smile back again quickly, kicking myself for having not realized it had faded. "Just noticing that those aren't exactly a philosophy major's hands."

He shrugged as he put the drink in front of me, flipping the caramel bottle casually as he returned it to the stand with a gesture more suited to a bar than a coffee shop. "Tried philosophy, but I just Kant." It took a moment, but his grin widened when he saw my double take. "Detroit, actually. Car guy up until Mr. Roboto domo arigatoed my job. Now I've got a lot of skills no one wants for a lot of things no one makes."

I'd noticed an old classic Chevy outside, and I wondered now if it was his. Curtis would know, of course, impossible gossip that he was, but he'd excused himself to the bathroom, and I filed the thought for later, popping the lid to sip at the soft foam and watching his broad shoulders challenge the cheap black polo as he wiped down the countertop. "Crashing with my little brother until I figure out next. Speaking of — SAMMY!" He paused and picked up a venti something from the edge of the bar, bellowing into the same shadowy corner he'd been consulting when I walked in. "You gonna get this before it gets cold enough to draw polar bears?"

"Sorry." The answering voice was deep but still somehow boyish, a little embarrassed, and I choked on my drink as it unfolded itself into a man who had to be at least six four, with the kind of shoulder to waist ratio usually reserved for action figures and the hair of a romance novel. There was a laptop open on the table where he had been sitting, and he had a smartphone in his hand that seemed to hold at least 98% of his attention as he reached past me and grabbed the drink, already halfway back to the table before his brother could even roll his eyes.

I was too tired not to gawk, and Dean chuckled when he saw, nodding knowingly. "Yeah. Sam's the only one who ate his Wheaties when we were kids. Your turn."

I blinked, trying to force my brain back on track. "Huh?"

He tapped the embroidered mermaid on his apron, then extended his hand. "Dean. Ex-mechanic, mooch, maker of a hope it's ok caramel chai."

"Kim," I took the hand, shaking it firmly. "It's an excellent caramel chai, and you have to promise not to laugh."

He raised one eyebrow, leaning on the bar again, half an eye on the door at an angle that made his lashes catch the morning light entirely unfairly. And oh, goddamn it, he had freckles. "Birthday party princess? Cat psychologist? I knew one of those in Spokane —"

I shook my head, managing somehow to keep my face not only straight, but appropriately dour. "Worse. Motivational speaker for call center employees."

The green eyes widened. "Seriously? Like, press six to hear that you're special?"

"More like take a deep breath and don't call the customer that even if they."

He let out a long, low whistle, seeming almost genuinely impressed. "Wow. I thought I had a lousy - " The door opened, and he cut off mid-sentence, hurrying back to the register as if I - cleavage and all - had ceased to exist. "Cas!"

So much for Curtis' theory. And for that matter, so much for his chances. Fuck it, why were all the gorgeous ones gay AND taken?

The newcomer made it official. I must have missed the email on my rewards card, because we were three for three and it was clearly Man Candy Day at this particular Starbucks. Late thirties, some kind of private security guard service based on the uniform, with a tall runner's build, fucktousled dark hair, a profile that could teach geometry class, and eyes that made you reconsider everything you thought you knew about the color blue. Oh, yeah, and sharing the kind of look with the barista that you don't share with a barista unless you're ordering a triple fuck me with no foam and a splash of forever.

The things he wanted to say churned behind Dean's pressed lips in a ripple of tendons across his jaw and neck, and there was such _volume_ there that I caught myself holding my own breath, disappointment lost in fascination. Technically, my Master's degree was in communication, but I could have gone for a PhD on what was being said silently across that narrow counter, and it was so much more than mere sexual tension, though that lay palpable in the air and thrilled along eyelines that lingered too often and long on lips and the tongue tips that unconsciously worried them.

It was a small eternity of silence in which neither of them moved enough to shift their shadows, then Dean pulled an about face crisp enough for a Marine, flipping the shot glasses into place and punching the button on the espresso machine as he reached for a grande cup. "You look like shit warmed over. Four shots?"

"No." The guard's voice startled me, a shotglass of jagged film noir served straight up and unfiltered. "I've had too much caffeine as it is."

Dean hesitated, then nodded, throwing out the shots he'd already pulled and starting in on a different drink without skipping a beat. "Another robbery?"

"Three."

"Jewelry again?"

"They're branching out into electronics as well, it seems" There was more than lovers here, and it was the way all trace of a casual slouch had vanished from Dean's posture, the sudden crisp precision of his movements that made me see it. Military. These two had fought together at some point…Iraq or Afghanistan, probably, and they still had that rapport so effortlessly that it had room enough for everything else. And whoo boy holy mother of homoerotica was there plenty of that.

"God help them if they go after Sammy's laptop." There wasn't the humor there that there should have been.

"It might make —" The rest of it was drowned out in the roar of a blender, and Cas stopped, frowning curiously as he watched caramel, whipped cream, and something out of a shaker added to the mixture. "Is that for me?"

"Special recipe. I've got things all figured out…we've got pie." He pushed the cup across the counter with a pointed look, waving away the open wallet. "It's on me."

"You're sure?"

"Absolutely."

Again with the volumes unspoken, but this time, it felt more as if some kind of code phrase had been exchanged, and Cas picked up the cup, looking thoughtfully down into it as though something could be divined from the swirls of the cream. "When can I get the recipe?" A little too stilted, definitely returning the code. Were they maybe STILL military? Or some other kind of law enforcement well beyond what the rentacop ensemble would suggest? Was this all —

Dean rolled his eyes, reaching out and rotating the drink in the other man's hand. "I wrote it on the side, dumbass." I caught a flash of numbers as it twisted, and I almost laughed aloud at myself. Here I was making up all kinds of drama about secret codes and a history as brothers in arms and apparently they were just now at the here's my number, call me maybe stage. Teach me to try to mind-read sexy strangers on four hours of sleep and three time zones.

"Ah. Well." Cas's cheeks had flushed visibly, and he cleared his throat, shifting his hand to hide the writing. "That certainly makes things…easier."

There was a long pause, and Dean ran his hand slowly through his hair, pinching at the bridge of his nose before looking up again with a sigh. "Cas?"

The blue eyes were almost laughably innocent as he made a noise of acknowledgement around the straw. "Mmm?"

"You suck at subtle."

"I'm sorry, Dean. Thank you for the…recipe. I'm sure it will help me get what I need tonight."

Another sigh and a fond shake of the head. "It's ok, I - CAS!"

I don't think I'll ever forget what happened. And I don't think it will ever make sense or feel like reality. Even then, it didn't. Time seemed to get gut-punched, double over, gasp for air and wheeze out the seconds in a shuddering, impossible expletive.

The bathroom door had opened. Curtis had taken two steps out. His hands were still wet. They caught the light through the east windows, the same light that had made Dean's lashes look so gilded. The light that gleamed off his teeth as his face contorted in a look of more feral, primal rage than I'd ever seen on another human. His teeth were so white. He was very particular about that. He used Crest White Strips and carried the little fingertip toothbrushes in his car. He'd had a laser treatment once. They shone pearly and perfect as the second set burst from his gums too bloodlessly and slid down over them, long and thin and freak-sharp like the second mouth of the Alien.

A moment of two sets of teeth and my friend's face distorted like some grotesque tribal demon mask and then time went even more wrong because there was no way anyone could move that fast. But he was halfway over the counter and roaring like sitting under the bridge when the train passes and would have torn Dean's throat out except Sam had reached out one of those ridiculously long arms and snagged an ankle. I remembered hazel eyes soft and smart and scanning lightly over a glowing little screen. They were narrow and hard as amber and Curtis' knee made a sound like a dropped melon as that big man yanked and twisted.

Then Dean had a knife that shouldn't have been that sharp for bagels and he'd tossed it to Cas and Curtis should have been screaming, because his leg was broken, it was very broken, but he didn't care, and wasn't screaming, he was roaring. Roaring and still trying to twist away from Sam and claw his way over the counter a split second year later when Cas brought the knife blurring down and the blood glittered in that bright east light as the head fell to a muffled thunk against the black plastic waffles of the baristas' traction mats.

Almost silence. All three men breathing hard. Blood still spurting a little for one or two gushes, then dripping. Curtis' limbs twitching a few times. A chittering, hitching sound that was maybe coming from me. The timer to brew fresh coffee started beeping, shrill and insistent. Dean reached up and turned it off without looking.

I forget exactly what happened next. I really do. That's not a copout. If I was going to try to pretend I didn't remember something to make it easier, it would have been the dropping melon sound. Or the gum on the bottom of his shoe as his foot jittered its own disbelief that he was dead. Or the blood sprayed across the front of the little warming oven, the doors of the pastry case, the chrome of the urns and the charmingly lettered labels of what was on tap today.

I forget exactly what happened next, but the next thing I do remember is being on my knees, looking down at a puddle of the chai I'd spilled and the chai I'd thrown up slurried with a few bites of pumpkin bread (warmed, with the good Kerrygold butter) and the little packet of almonds I'd grabbed from the kiosk at the airport. Sam's arm was around my shoulders, holding me firmly, and it should have felt anything but safe, except nothing was making sense, and he smelled like flannel and sandlewood and was being so gentle it was an obscenity. I could hear the other two moving quickly, purposefully, doing efficient things that clicked and slid and thudded. I didn't want to look.

He was saying something about promising not to hurt me. I looked at him. I wanted to say a lot of things that failed and turned into "Fuck" in a way I don't know how to punctuate.

"He was a vampire," Sam explained softly and with too much experience. He knew what he was talking about. That made everything worse, but he must have misunderstood the look on my face, whatever it was, because he kept going even though I just wanted him to shut up, go away, and wake me up on the way out so that this would all stop being. "The non-sparkly kind of vampire, that is. My brother, my friend and I have been staking out this town for weeks now. There's a nest here, we knew it had something to do with this place, but Dean didn't catch them in the act until last night. It's one of the other baristas. He's been profiling victims from the regulars, a few drops of blood in the drink, they never even taste it."

"I don't —" I wanted to say I don't care. I wanted to say stop talking. I just made a gurgling noise and threw up again. Sam held my hair back. He had a big wad of napkins. He put them on the puke and kept it from getting on my knees. I hated him suddenly, vibrantly for that. I hated him even more that he kept talking and that it almost made sense to the bit of me that had broken off and wandered away to watch all this from the corner of the room. "Once they've begun to turn, he can find them easily, and then they face a choice…kill people for what they need, or he'll pay them in guilt-free bags of O-negative for robbing their own homes and businesses. We were hoping to ambush them tonight. It wasn't supposed to go like this."

No shit, Sherlock. I made the nastiest face at him I could. Not supposed to go like this. YOU FUCKING THINK? I wanted a fucking caramel chai and a fucking pumpkin bread, maybe with a side of ogling your gods-gift-to-eyes-and-asses brother and a little raunchy speculation with my best friend later, and at no time did it occur to me that I had need to specify HOLD THE MOTHERFUCKING SPONTANEOUS DECAPITATIONS! Except again, all that eloquence was just somewhere trapped in the back of my throat in the thick wads of shock. What I actually said was kind of "ggllllmmmmnnaaNOOO."

My hand found Cas, who was dropping the blinds, moving a sign, cutting off the damned east light and all view of the carnage from the street beyond. It flapped at him weakly, and I saw that I'd scraped it somehow. I hadn't noticed. It didn't hurt. "Why?"

There was an awfully deep and genuine and un-psychotic sympathy in his eyes. "Vampires have a type of what you would call 'sixth sense.' I was once —"

Dean interrupted, silencing him with a harsh look. He'd taken the apron off. The blood must have still been there, but it was invisible against the black. "Cas just has that effect on monsters." He broke the key off in the front door lock, then knelt next to me, and I shivered at how close his hand came to me on the way to his brother's shoulder. His eyes were kind too. It didn't make sense. Nothing did. "I'm sorry you had to see this."

"Are you going to kill me now?" At least they were words, even if I sounded about five years old and hated myself for that.

"No. But your friend has forced our hand, and his boss is going to feel what we've done here." A look passed between the brothers, and Sam helped me stand in a technicality that was honestly picking me up and putting me down with my feet under me and my legs shaking so hard my shoes rattled on the tiles. I was cold, which was weird. That Starbucks is always too hot. I've complained to the manager about it.

Dean turned my chin gently with the back of his knuckle, and something changed again. Now there was a cool, clear place. Curtis was dead. That was sad. Whatever had happened to him before he had died was bad, but I couldn't think about it. Right now, I just had to survive. Whatever that took. These men could kill me, but I did not want to die.

I held Dean's eyes steadily, fisted my hands and tucked them up close to my chest as if curling in on myself. I'd remembered the mace in my bra. My fingers were inches from it if any of them so much as blinked funny. I had never been so alert, so aware, so calm. I felt superhuman. I could see so crisply, each individual stubbled hair on his jaw, his pupils dilated with adrenaline, the faint sheen of sweat, the shiny, pearl-handled gun he had acquired from somewhere while I was busy hugging the floor. I could hear him breathing. I could hear the stereo on some car at the gas station across the street. "You don't have to kill me. I'll do whatever you want."

"What I want, Kim," Dean was still talking like he needed to worry about my feelings, like I was upset. He didn't understand. "Is for you to walk out that door right now and go home like nothing happened, and tomorrow, if anyone asks you about the fire, everything seemed normal when you left Curtis here talking to us."

Sam's shoulders bunched as he shook his head, pushing aside a lock of hair that I noticed was wet with something too thick and dark to be water. "You can't just ask her to pretend nothing happened, Dean. She —"

"She saw nothing," Cas agreed. "If they think she had anything to do with this before we get them all - IF we are able to get them all now that we've lost the element of surprise —"

"I saw nothing." I pulled away calmly, picking up my purse from where it was still sitting next to the plate with the half the pumpkin bread I'd probably never be able to stand the sight of again once I'd figured out where I put my feelings. "I saw nothing, and I'm leaving right now."

Dean appeared satisfied, but distracted, and from the way he kept glancing at the door and the way Cas had positioned himself next to it standing on a table so his feet couldn't be seen, I knew that now was an excellent leaving time. Maybe almost as good as five minutes ago. "I'll let you out the back."

I didn't look into the bar area as he lead me back, knowing that the head was still down there somewhere. Instead, I watched his hands as they danced cleverly over the pad of the alarm, disabling it. "You are NOT a mechanic."

He made a dark snorting noise that was too distracted to pretend to laugh. "Technically, no."

"Are you FB…is this like the X-files?" I don't know why I was trying to make conversation, much less sense of it all. It didn't matter. It still doesn't.

"More or less."

He opened the door. Outside, it was bright. Outside, everything smelled like it was supposed to. Dumpster and asphalt beginning to warm up under the sun and mulch still wet from the sprinklers and grease and bacon from the Denny's and cigarettes from the busboys smoking behind it. I hesitated. I didn't belong to that world any more. "I'm…I'm going to need so much fucking therapy, and I don't even know what to tell them."

"I'm sorry." It wasn't the stupid platitude that it could have been, but it was final, and it was firm, and as he shut the door, leaving me on the other side in the place where things were supposed to be real, I knew that he meant it. I also knew that it was time to run, that I would die if I stayed, and that there was almost half a bottle of mango rum under the sink back at my apartment.

So I ran. I'm still running, really. It was months ago. I've never talked about it. This still doesn't count. I'm going to delete it, even though it's a private post on a hidden blog. I needed to say it, and I need to make it go away. Makes total sense and none at all. Because that's how shit IS.

No one ever asked me about what happened at the Starbucks, though I read about the fire in the paper the next day and saw it on the news that night. Four people killed; two employees and two customers. Curtis would have liked how white his teeth looked in the picture they used. I didn't keep it, but when I saw it, I laughed until I couldn't breathe, until my voice was gone and my throat raw and my nose running down my chin and my eyes burning. Then I kissed the picture and ripped it out and threw it into the trash. "Funny, isn't it?" I sounded so wrong that a bug-eyed rocking giggling thing in the back of my brain wondered if this was what had happened to Cas' voice once upon a time. "It's like you always said, Curt, there's worse things than the really hot ones always being into someone else."

THE END

NOTES: When I got this job, I swore I'd never write one of those fluffy Destiel coffee shop AUs. As you can see, I still haven't. The title comes from a detail of the drink Dean made for Cas, which is an apple pie frappuccino: cinnamon dulce creme frappuccino with half the milk replaced with apple juice, caramel inside and out, whipped cream, and cinnamon dulce topping


End file.
